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The Bohemians (Czechs) 
In The Present Crisis 



TjjrN address delivered by ^ ^ 
Jt] CHARLES PERGLER. LL. B. 
on the 28th day of May. 1916. 
in Chicago, at a meeting held to com- 
memorate the deeds of Bohemian 
volunteers in the Great War "^ ^ 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

Bobmlan national flillance of America 

3639 West 26th Street 
CHICAGO. ILL. 



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The Bohemians (Czechs) 
In The Present Crisis 



"tQTN address delivered by ^ ^ 
Jf\\ CHARLES PERGLER. LL. B. 
on the 28th day of May. 1916. 
in Chicago, at a meeting held to com- 
memorate the deeds of Bohemian 
volunteers in the Great War ^ ^ 



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PUBLISHED BY THE 

BoDemlan national Jllliance of Jlinerica 

3639 West 26th Street 
CHICAGO, ILL. 



:ii5zo 

SOME BOOKLETS 
ON THE BOHEMIAN CAUSE 

Published by the 

BOHEMIAN NATIONAL ALLIANCE 



DECLARATION of the Bohemian (Czech) 
Foreign Committee 

ADDENDA: 

Professor T. G. Masaryk as a Lecturer in London 

University. 

Comments of London Papers. 



The Position of the Bohemians (Czechs) 
in the European W^ar 

CONTENTS: 
1. Why the Bohemians are not friends of the Germans. 
2.. Bohemians for America and against Austria. 

3. Resolution of protest against the "Appeal to the 

American People". 

4. British, French and Russian comments on the attitude 

of the Bohemians. 



Bohemia's Claim to Independence 

An address delivered by Charles Pergler L.L. B. before the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States. 



I. 

THESE are times that try men's souls, said Thomas 
Paine of perhaps the most critical period of the 
American revolution. These are times that try not 
only men's souls, but the souls of whole nations, and place 
their very moral fibre to the acid test, may be said of our 
own time. 

We are confronted today not only with the greatest 
catastrophe in the world's history, but we are witnesses 
of a struggle of civilization against civilization. 

Whatever may be said from various points of view 
of the ultimate causes of the present war, the fact re- 
mains that Germany has attempted to force upon the 
world its conception of civilization and order, and its 
conception of might as making right. 

For the past hundred years German works on politi- 
cal science and political philosophy are replete with sug- 
gestions of the supremacy of the State, and of the State 
Germans have made a fetish. In order to save the State 
and for its aggrandizement from the German point of 
view anything is permissible, even to the destruction of 
neutral and innocent states, and of rendering treaties 
mere scraps of paper. Such literature is at least a 
symptom and may be a contributing cause. 

It is an indisputable fact that the Germans, when- 
ever they gained the upper hand anywhere, always sought 
to impose what they call culture upon other peoples, and 
as bearers of alleged culture Germanization of other na- 
tions has been their policy from times immemorial. Ger- 
man attempts at Germanization in Bohemia, Poland and 
elsewhere illustrate the German attitude towards nu- 
merically small nations, an attitude essentially Immoral. 

Couple these facts with German disregard of inter- 
national law, and you have disclosed before you the 
philosophy that might makes right in all its nakedness. 



As opposed to this conception of political morality, 
there has been growing up a belief that states and na- 
tions, as well as individuals, must be governed by a code 
of morals, or a code of international law, as we should 
more strictly call it. 

I believe it cannot be said to be an exaggeration to 
assert that during the last half century the foremost 
exponent of the necessity of regulation of international 
relations by recognized rules of international law has been 
England, and it is not a mere accident that the imme- 
diate cause of England's entrance into the present war 
was the violation of Belgian neutrality as guaranteed by 
international treaties. 

The Germans delight in frequently speaking of "per- 
fidious Albion". We need not hesitate to concede that 
perhaps there is no nation on the face of the globe in 
whose history there are not chapters that nation itself 
would prefer to have eliminated. But English statesman- 
ship has always been farsighted, and if it is true of morals 
in the sociological sense that they are an outgrowth of 
experience as to what is beneficial to mankind, and to the 
individual, it is equally true that experience is beginning 
to teach that in international relations injustice ultimately 
reacts upon the oppressor, and that the spirit of fair play 
must prevail over the chaotic conditions which have char- 
acterized international relations almost to the present 
day. 

Experience is beginning to teach us that this world 
will continue to present a sorry spectacle unless the 
rights of all nations are respected, and unless a firm and 
enforceable code of international morals is built up which 
will protect the existence and the right to exist and de- 
velopment of all nations. 

It is to the credit of English statesmanship that per- 
haps more than any other it has foreseen the necessity of 
such an international code, and the necessity of respect- 
ing the rights even of small nationalities. In this recog- 
nition I believe we must find the secret of the frequent 
assertions by English statesmen that this war is one for 
the rights and protection of small nationalities. 



It makes little difference whether the recognition of 
the necessity of a code of international morals came as 
a result of experience, or whether it came as a result of 
abstract reasoning; it is the present fact that counts, and 
that is decisive. 

The Allied powers stand ready to recognize and pro- 
tect the rights of small nationalities, while Germany dis- 
regards these, and even stands ready to crush their very 
lives out. It is not an accident that among the Germans 
we find a sociological writer of note, one pretending to 
be a socialist (Cunow), who only recently declared that 
small nations have no right to exist. As against this 
philosophy of brutal force we have such men as Lord 
Bryce, of England; Senator Martin, of France; Gustav 
Herve, the French socialist, and the Russian Miljukov, 
who have emphasized time and again the fact that for the 
sake of a soulless State the life of no nation shall be 
crushed out. The recent Irish episode, properly analyzed, 
is not a refutation of these facts. 

It is, therefore, no exaggeration to say that this war, 
at least in one of its phases, is one between two conflicting 
civilizations, and between two different conceptions of 
the world, or, as the Germans themselves would call it, 
between two Weltanschauungen. 

It is perfectly fitting that we here in America should 
speak of a conflict between two civilizations. The great 
American Civil War was a struggle against slavery. But 
it was more, it was a struggle for the preservation of the 
great American Union as the most advanced experiment 
in modern democracy; and it was yet more, it also was a 
struggle between two civilizations; between a civilization 
based upon slavery on the one hand, and a civilization 
based upon wage labor on the other hand. There could 
be no real progress in this country until the civilization 
based upon slavery was done away with, and only after 
its destruction could the country reach the highroad to 
real democracy and real freedom. 



II. 

SYMPATHY with one side or the other in the present 
war cannot be avoided. 
But, we are told, in sympathizing with one side 
or the other in the present war, you are unneutral. If 
neutrality means indifference as between right and wrong, 
then there is no such thing as neutrality. Concerning the 
greatest event of human history thinking people must 
have some opinions. Only people deaf, dumb and blind, 
or people in a hopeless pathological condition, can be de- 
void of an opinion. 

The American public has long ago made up its mind 
as to the causes of this war, and as to where the right is 
in the present conflict. Somebody was the aggressor in 
this war; somebody immediately provoked it, and as evi- 
denced by the recent manifesto of five hundred Ameri- 
cans, men of letters and science, the American public is in 
no doubt as to where the provocation was, and as to who 
appeared in the role of an aggressor. 

This, also, is perfectly fitting and proper. When 
the great Civil War was raging, the world was not in- 
different; many so-called foreigners fought with the 
armies of the north, and on the whole the sympathies of 
the outside world were with the forces of the Union. The 
English masses were with the forces of the Union regard- 
less of whatever the position of the then English gov- 
ernment may have been. 

Owing to scarcity of cotton, English textile workers 
during the Civil War were on the verge of starvation, yet 
led by such men as Carl Marx, then residing in England, 
the English workingmen sent to President Lincoln their 
famous address wishing the northern cause success. Can 
there be a better proof of real idealism; can there be bet- 
ter proof of subordination of immediate material inter- 
ests to the larger interests of mankind? 

It will be well remembered that during the Civil 
War Russian sympathies were also with the north, and 
indeed Russia has always been a friend of this country. 

In the present conflict perhaps fully eight-flve per 
cent of the American public wish success to the Allied 



cause. It is a safe indication that the judgment of the 
people has been rendered in so emphatic a form that it 
cannot be set aside. 

The form the processes of the collective mind some- 
times take may be past understanding, but the fact re- 
mains that the instinctive, if you will, judgment of the 
masses is almost invariably correct and sound. The con- 
clusions of the people may not be reasoned, perhaps in the 
masses people cannot reason; but it is no mere phrase to 
say that as frequently as not their conclusions reached on 
matters of public policy are as safe and reliable as those 
of the coolest and most thoughtful philosopher. In that 
fact indeed lies the hope of real democracy. 

It is no exaggeration to say that in other neutral 
countries the opinion of the people does not differ from 
the sentiments prevailing in the United States. Can it 
therefore be surprising that in the present crisis the Bo- 
hemian people, as far as their opinion could be expressed, 
took their stand on the side of the Allies? 

Indeed, to any one knowing Bohemian history; to 
any one knowing Bohemian traditions; to any one know- 
ing the character of the Bohemian people, any other posi- 
tion would almost seem out of question, and if the Aus- 
trian government is surprised today at the outburst of 
indignation against its methods among people of Bohe- 
mian origin living beyond Austrian boundaries, this per- 
haps best illustrates the truth of the old saying that ''those 
whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." 

If we should seek a clue to the character of the Bo- 
hemian people we may best find it in the Hussite wars, of 
which the burning of Hus and Jerome was the imme- 
diate cause. 

The Hussite movement originally was a moral one 
and directed against the corruption among the Roman 
clergy of the middle ages. The attitude of Hus and 
Jerome in their day was one of sheer idealism, and for 
that matter Czechs never under-estimated spiritual val- 
ues. The Hussite wars finally had, of course, their social 
as well as economic phases, but it cannot be gainsaid that 



they were also fought for a religious and civic ideal, for 
communion in both kinds, and for the rights of the Czech 
language against che aggression of the Germans. 

After the unfortunate battle of White Mountain, in 
1620, thirty-six thousand Bohemian families left their na- 
tive land, and lost their property by confiscation, rather 
than give up their religion, and what they conceived to 
be religious truth. 

A nation of such character could not remain silent 
and was manifestly destined to take its place by the side 
of the Allied powers. 

This position was also dictated by the instinct of 
national self-preservation. 

This is a war of German imperialism, it is an attempt 
to carry out the German Drang nach Osten, and anything 
standing in the way of German imperialistic ambitions is 
destined to be destroyed if German ruling classes have 
their way. 

Austria is nothing but a tool in this gigantic German 
gamble, the success of which would mean a destruction of 
small nationalities standing in the path of the German 
push toward the east. 

It follows, therefore, that this war is not only one to 
reduce France to impotence, to destroy the British Em- 
pire, to thwart legitimate Russian ambitions, to destroy 
the Serbian nationality and to absorb Belgium, but it is 
also a war on the part of Germany and Austria against 
the Bohemian people, who have been the western sentinel 
of Slavdom for centuries. 

Austria is warring now against her own people, and 
her own people are now demanding that Austria herself 
be destroyed; that Austria herself be wiped from the face 
of the globe. 



III. 

IN this war the Austrian government attempted to force 
the Czechs into a fratricidal struggle against kindred 
peoples and against those with whom the Czech people 
always were in sympathy. 

Between the French and Bohemian peoples there al- 
ways was a sympathetic understanding. These are days of 
many memories, and one of the occasions we should es- 
pecially remember is last year's French offensive in the 
Champagne region wher^ the French army attempted to 
throw back the German forces, and where in the fifteenth 
century also fell John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, 
fighting with the French at the head of a company of 
Bohemian nobles. 

References to the battle of Cressy are frequent in 
Bohemian literature; it is always remembered whenever 
French and Bohemian sympathies are talked of. Czech 
members of the Bohemian diet in 1871 were the only 
members of any parliamentary body in the world to pro- 
test against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine by 
Germany. There has always been an intellectual bond 
between the countries, and literature in the French lan- 
guage is perhaps translated into the Bohemian tongue 
more than that of any other. 

Ernest Denis, the Frenchman, is also one of the 
greatest of historians of Bohemia. 

These are matters of sentiment, of course, but this 
war has brought us to a realization that matters of sen- 
timent and ideals have a practical value as well. It is 
really the sentiment of the world, perhaps as much as 
anything else, that makes today for the ultimate defeat 
of Germany. 

French political ideals, as evolved during and as a 
result of the great French Revolution, have always been 
of importance in Bohemian political life, and as a matter 
of fact it may be said that the influence of the French 
encyclopedists was a potent factor in the revival of Czech 
nationality toward the end of the eighteenth and at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. 



Nor must we lose sight of the fact that Bohemian 
public opinion was always favorable to England. 

English contributions to the science of government 
and to real democracy cannot be overestimated. Bohe- 
mians have always considered Great Britian as one of the 
representative democracies of the world, and it is a fact 
that most Bohemian political parties, as one of the planks 
in their political platforms, have a demand for the intro- 
duction of many English constitutional customs, this be- 
ing especially true of the jury system. 

It is not without significance that English philoso- 
phy became well known in Bohemia through the efforts of 
that greatest of living Bohemians, Professor Masaryk, 
now the leader of the movement for Bohemian indepen- 
dence, and professor in the London University. 

John Stuart Mill is one of the most popular political 
authors known in Bohemia. 

All these bonds of sympathy between Bohemia and 
England could not be wiped out by a declaration of war 
by the Vienna government against France and England, 
and it is only natural that such a declaration was met 
among the Bohemians with indignation and downright 
horror. 

This was especially true of a war against kindred 
peoples, against the Russians and the Serbians. 

During the first Balkan war, nowhere were the vic- 
tories of the Balkan league more enthusiastically cele- 
brated than in the capital of Bohemia, in Prague. 

But the bonds between the Russian and Serbian peo- 
ple and the Bohemians are not merely those that usually 
exist between nations of the same origin, but they are also 
due to the fact that the Serbians and Russians, like all 
Slavic people, are essentially democratic. The present 
form of government in that respect makes little difference. 
The Russian muzhik with his mir is about as near a de- 
mocracy as can be, and we all know that in their attitude, 
even to those in power, the Russian muzhiks are known 
for their democratic simplicity. 

10 



The literature of Russia is well known in Bohemia, 
and there are few Russian works of any significance that 
have not been translated into the Bohemian language. 

The Italian people for a long time suffered under 
Austrian despotism, and even now are fighting for the lib- 
eration of their compatriots still living within Austrian 
boundaries. Could the Bohemians take a stand against 
their fellow-sufferers? Most decidedly not. 

And where is there a human being in whose breast 
the plight of heroic Belgium did not engender the desire 
that Belgium's ravishers be defeated? 

Thus we see that the sympathies of the Bohemian 
people in the present struggle of necessity could be no- 
where else than on the side of the Allied powers, and 
against the Austrian and German governments. 

It m^y be said that all these things are of no ac- 
count, no value, and no influence in politics, especially 
international politics. There may have been a time when 
this was true, but modern governments now are and of 
necessity must be more responsive to the moods and at- 
titudes of the peoples they rule, and all these matters 
must therefore be taken into account, not only by the gov- 
ernments, but of necessity wise statesmen will consider 
them in the future peace conference. Diplomacy can- 
not be any more a game of the select few, but must take 
into account popular tendencies and popular opinions. 



IV. 

MR. MOWRER, the Daily News correspondent, the 
other day described the terms upon which the 
Allies are willing to conclude peace, and one of 
these he says is the re-establishment of an independent 
Bohemia. If the Allies can enforce their will, the con- 
clusion of the war will see the re-establishment of Bohe- 
mian independence, which in spirit Bohemia never relin- 
quished. Perhaps no single sentence could better de- 
ll 



scribe or express the long struggle of the Czech people 
to maintain and to regain such independence. 

Time was when the whole world listened with bated 
breath to what was going on in the heart of Europe, in 
Bohemian lands. In this connection it is a very signifi- 
cant fact, which we must always remember, that at the 
council of Basle, one of the Bohemian heresies, condemned 
by the council, was the Hussite thesis that each nation 
has the right to govern itself. 

The right to independence and to self-government 
was never surrendered by the Czech people, and when the 
Hapsburgs were called to the Bohemian throne in 1526 
they took a solemn oath to maintain Bohemian indepen- 
dence, and such oaths were repeatedly reaffirmed there- 
after by members of this reigning family, but never 
really seriously observed. 

Encroachments upon Bohemian independence began 
by Ferdinand I as early as 1547, when the autonomy of 
Bohemian cities was destroyed, and the leaders of the 
movement for such autonomy executed at what is now 
known in Bohemian history as the ''Bloody Diet". 

After that the history of Bohemia is largely one of a 
struggle between the Hapsburgs, aiming at centraliza- 
tion and Germanization on the one hand, and the Bohe- 
mians seeking to preserve their independence on the other 
hand. 

The struggle culminated in a Bohemian defeat in 
1620, and was followed by ruthless oppression of the 
nation for almost three centuries thereafter. 

However, no amount of persecution, no amount of 
Germanization could stamp out the spark of Czech na- 
tional life, and only a few years ago it seemed that no 
power on earth could prevent the Czechs from achieving 
self-government within Austria. 

It was only the influence and power of Berlin that 
thwarted the Czech desires during the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and one of the causes of this war may be sought in 
the desire of Berlin and Budapest to once and forever be 

12 



rid of the Slavic danger to pan-German and Magyar 
dreams of empire. 

The war is a war not only against England, Rus- 
sia, and against France, but it is also a struggle against 
the Slavic majority living in Austria. The Bohemians, 
having reached the highest state of culture and develop- 
ment among the Austrian Slavs, are an obstacle which the 
Germans and Magyars seek to crush. 

The Vienna government was fully aware that the 
Czechs, if afforded an opportunity, would oppose the war 
with all the vigor of a revived and growing nation. It is 
now apparent that this was the reason for the destruc^ 
tion of the last measure of Bohemian autonomy before the 
outbreak of the present war when the council of the Bo- 
hemian kingdom was dissolved and a special imperial com- 
mission created to govern Bohemia. 

The present attitude of the Bohemians is therefore 
not only a result of the inherited national character, not 
only the result of ancient sympathies and bonds existing 
between the Czech people and the Russians, the French 
and the English, but it is a continuation of their efforts 
to regain their independence. 

Ever since the establishment of a semblance of a 
parliamentary and political life in Austria, the Czech peo- 
ple have been in opposition to the Austrian government, 
and it certainly was the height of folly to expect that 
when war broke out against the wishes, against the sym- 
pathies, and against the interests of the Czech people, 
they would support a government with which they were 
not in accord. 

To march without protest to battlefields destined for 
fratricidal struggles would have been abject cowardice, 
and would have amounted to a forfeiture of the right of 
the Czech nation to exist; morally, as well as otherwise, 
it would have been equivalent to the commission of na- 
tional suicide. Opposition to the central powers and a vir- 
tual spiritual alliance with the Allies was the only course 
consistent with Czech honor. 

13 



It was a terribly test to which the Czech nationality 
was subjected when the war broke out; a test which lit- 
erally amounted to a choice between life and death. The 
present attitude of the Bohemians of course means per- 
secution, it means gallows and the rifle squad for untold 
numbers of staunch Czechs, but had the Bohemians cra- 
venly submitted to the Austrian government, the efforts 
to stamp out the Czech nationality would have gone on in 
any event, but with the endangering and possible loss of 
nationality would have been coupled a loss of national 
honor which indeed would have been worse than death in- 
dividually or collectively. 

It is not out of place to confess that some of us 
watched with anxiety what was going on in Europe. We 
knew that after the battle of White Mountain the best 
elements in Bohemian national life were crushed and 
stamped out, or driven into exile. We realized what inevi- 
table effect this must have had on Czech character for a 
long, long time, and we wondered whether after all the 
Czech nationality had again become the nation of Hus 
and Jerome. 

Our highest hopes have not been disappointed; in 
spite of all the persecution, in spite of the numerous exe- 
cutions, in spite of all the pressure brought upon all Bo- 
hemian political parties, the Bohemians in Austria are 
maintaining a silence which now is indeed more eloquent 
than words could be, while individuals of Bohemian origin 
living beyond Austrian boundaries are manifesting with 
all the vigor in their command sympathies with the Allies. 
The acid test has been passed successfully, the Czechs are 
again a nation of Hus and Jerome. 

It was Goethe, I believe, who after the battle of 
Valmy said that he was glad to have lived then because he 
had seen the inauguration of an epoch. We may well re- 
peat this statement now. We have indeed seen the birth 
of a new epoch, and we of Bohemian descent may well 
say that we are especially content to have lived in the 
present age and to have seen the Bohemian nation again 
strong and vigorous, again playing its part forcefully in 
the drama of nations. 

14 



AN attempt has been made to create the impression 
that the Bohemian movement for independence is 
nothing but an effort of a few agitators in the 
service of the Allies, actuated by selfish motives, and in- 
fluenced by English gold. There has even been some talk 
of a Bohemian war plot to foster a revolution in Austria, 
and to draw the United States into war with Germany 
and Austria. 

The workings of the bureaucratic mind are indeed 
marvelous to behold. The Austrian authorities pretended 
to be and perhaps were actually surprised at the behavior 
of those Bohemians who are not subject to Austrian mar- 
tial law. But only a few years ago a member of an 
Austrian cabinet declared that the struggle between Bo- 
hemians and Germans in Austria ultimately would be 
decided by force, and that in such contest the Austrian 
Germans would be victorious with the aid of their kins- 
men from the empire, and that the result would be a com- 
plete wiping out of the Czechs. That is the kind of gov- 
ernment Bohemians have been subjected to, even shortly 
before the war; that is the kind of government which in 
this crisis asked for their loyalty. 

Whatever progress Bohemians have made during the 
last century was made in opposition to the Austrian gov- 
ernment, and their opposition to Austria at the present 
time is simply the logical carrying out of the traditional 
Bohemian attitude toward Austria. 

Anyone can understand this, anyone can see the logic 
of this, anyone can see the inevitability of this, except, 
of course, an Austrian bureaucrat. 

The Bohemians, like most other nations now involved 
in the war, were surprised by its outbreak; but while op- 
posed to the government, they were not ready for a revo- 
lution. For that matter a revolution in modern times 
is ordinarily a foolhardy thing. One machine gun will 
easily dispose of a large number of people, and it must J3e 
remembered that Bohemians are not led by a few mis- 
guided poets. Any talk of rebellion even now is simply 
an absurdity, and the movement for Bohemian inde- 

15 



pendence has for its object simply to inform the Allied 
governments and to inform the neutral world of the sit- 
uation in Austria, and we are confident that at the peace 
conference the Allied powers will see to it that Bohemia 
again becomes an independent State. This is not only a 
requirement of justice, but is a condition precedent to 
permanent peace. 

A war plot indeed! Was it a war plot when, after 
the sending of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, mon- 
ster meetings were held in Chicago, and Bohemian turn- 
ers spontaneously, without any direction, in one of the 
Chicago halls tore down the Austrian eagles? Was it a 
war plot when immediately upon the outbreak of the war 
Bohemians living in France, England and Russia volun- 
teered to fight in the armies of the Allies? 

Yes, even though Bohemians are not thinking of a 
revolt; even though they are not indulging in any dreams 
as to a possibility of a revolution in Austria, the Bohe- 
mian attitude has found its expression on the battlefield 
in more ways than one. 

In these days we must remember those Bohemian 
heroes who, in the service of humanity, and for their own 
nation, fell on the battlefield of Champagne. And how 
heroically they did struggle! Their deeds of heroism at 
Carency will be forever remembered. The Bohemian 
company, fighting with the French in the Champagne 
region, at Carency, within an hour took three German 
trenches in succession; it stormed the German trenches 
with such rapidity that the Bohemian Volunteers out- 
distanced the supporting troops and entered even the 
zone beyond the German trenches where the French shells 
were falling, and ultimately, because of the impossibility 
of being properly supported, had to be recalled. 

There is reliable information that the Bohemian regi- 
ments in the Austrian army, as soon as opportunity af- 
forded itself, surrendered to the "enemy". The twenty- 
eighth regiment surrendered in fact on two occasions, 
once in Serbia and once in the Carpathians; the eighty- 
eighth in Serbia; the eleventh in the Carpathians; the 
eighth, the ninety-first, as well as the one hundred second, 
in Serbia. Although subsequently again re-established 

16 



after the 3rd of April, 1915, the twenty-eighth regiment 
was dissolved by a special army order, signed by the em- 
peror himself, and its re-establishment was resorted to 
merely for the purpose of deceiving the outside world. 

Reliable information has it that the thirty-sixth 
Bohemian regiment and a Bohemian regiment from the 
south of Moravia revolted, and it is a fact that after the 
surrender of the twenty-eighth regiment at Bardejov of 
those who did not succeed in reaching the Russian lines 
every fifth man was executed. 

There is no gainsaying the fact that several hundred 
Bohemian officers and soldiers, formerly of the Austrian 
army, have fought with and are still in the army of Serbia. 
In Russia there is a whole Bohemian regiment called now 
the Bohemian Slavic sharpshooters* regiment. Last March 
there were fifteen hundred Bohemians in this regiment, 
and five hundred of these wear now the cross of St. 
George, awarded only for conspicuous deeds of bravery. 

The fact remains that the number of Czechs who de- 
serted would make six army corps. That explains many 
of the Austrian defeats in Serbia and Galicia. 

The socalled Bohemian regiments in the Austrian 
army at the present time are largely made up of a mix- 
ture of Magyars, who keep watch over the Bohemians re- 
maining in these regiments. 

It is an interesting fact that the president of the 
branch of the Bohemian National Alliance in Paris, the 
famous painter, Francis Kupka, himself for months fought 
in the trenches in France and returned to Paris only after 
being incapacitated by rheumatism. 

Czechs from Australia fought with the English sol- 
diers at Gallipoli. 

The services of the Bohemian volunteers have been 
recognized by Senator Martin in the French senate; by 
Millerand, a member of the French cabinet, and by Milju- 
kov and Kovalevsky in the Russian duma. 

It is no exaggeration to speak of the heroism of these 
Bohemians fighting voluntarily in the Allied armies; they 
volunteered because they felt that no Bohemian can 
stand indifferent and impassive in the struggle against the 
German desires for world dominion. 

17 



Their action was spontaneous, it was the instinctive 
expression of the Bohemian national character, it was not 
instigated by any agitation, and it is the best proof pos- 
sible of the fact that the Czech people can think for them- 
selves; that they have reached maturity; that once again 
they are ripe for independence. 

Unquestionably, these volunteers, with the troops 
who preferred to go over to the enemy, rather than to 
fight for a cause abhorrent to them, were heroes in the 
real sense of the term, and their memories will be pre- 
served forever green and untarnished. 

Theirs is the really sublime heroism. For self-efface- 
ment, for a similar sacrifice we should in vain seek in 
history for anything surpassing the heights these men 
reached; going to perhaps unmarked and unknown graves, 
all because they felt it their duty to stand along the side 
of those who fought for a higher civilization, and whose 
victory should and undoubtedly will result in the erection 
of a new and independent Bohemian state. 

In speaking of these Bohemian volunteers, we may 
say with Walt Whitman: 

"Those corpses of young men. 

Those martyrs that hang from the gibbets, — those hearts 

pierc'd by the gray lead, 
Cold and motionless as they seem, live elsewhere with 

unslaughter'd vitality. 

They live in other young men, kings! 
They live in brothers again ready to defy you! 
They were purified by death — they were taught and 
exalted. 

Not a grave of the murder'd for freedom, but grows seed 
for freedom, in its turn to bear seed, 

Which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains 
and the snows nourish. 

Not a disembodied spirit can the weapons of tyrants let 
loose, 

But it stalks invisibly over the earth, whispering, coun- 
selling, cautioning. 

Liberty! let others despair of you! I never despair of you " 

18 



Yes, there are other martyrs to the Bohemian cause 
than the volunteers who have laid down their lives in 
Russia and France. There have been numerous executions 
in Austria, and we have reliable information that almost 
four thousand persons were executed by the Austrian 
government for political offenses during the first fourteen 
months of the war, and that a large per cent, of these were 
Bohemians who dared to express their opposition to the 
Austrian government. Many Bohemians are in jail, among 
them the daughter of that most illustrious of Bohemians 
living. Professor Masaryk. They all are following in the 
footsteps of Hus and Jerome, and it is appropriate that 
we pay our tribute to them as well. 



VI. 

IN commemorating the memory of those fallen in the 
present struggle and doing our best to further the 
cause of Bohemian independence, we are also actuated 
by motives of best Americanism. 

The term Americanism has of late been seen a good 
deal in the press and it has been on the lips of many of 
the most prominent statesmen and thinkers of America. 
Like all terms, it may be given various meanings, depend- 
ing frequently upon the point of view of those using it. 
But I submit that real Americanism also means an en- 
deavor to see justice done, and justice means freedom of 
all oppressed nationalities, means the liberation of those 
still suffering under the heel of the conqueror. 

We submit that it is American public policy to main- 
tain that this country has the right to sympatize with the 
efforts of any nation to acquire liberty. This, at any rate, 
was the position of Daniel Webster in the famous Huelse- 
man incident. 

The Declaration of Independence declares that among 
the inalienable rights with which mankind is endowed are 
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure 
these rights governments were erected among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed. 

\9 



It necessarily follows that when a government ceases to 
subserve such purposes, it has lost its right to exist, and 
indeed has become a menace to the rest of the world. 
This is true of the Austrian Government, which, for that 
matter, really never subserved these purposes. 

The recent declaration of the rights of nations, 
adopted by the American Institute of International Law, 
holds that every nation has the right to the pursuit of 
happiness and is free to develop itself without interference 
or control from other states, provided that in so doing it 
does not interfere with, or violate the rights of other 
states. 

Only last evening. May 27th, in an address before 
the League to Enforce Peace, the president in substance 
declared that what concerns any other nation concerns 
America also because all nations have become our neigh- 
bors.. In the same address the president laid down certain 
general principles as those on which the ultimate settle- 
ment of the war must be made, unless civilization is to go 
back about one thousand years to the "might makes right" 
conception of international conduct. These principles 
are: — 

1 — The right of every people to choose the sover- 
eignty under which they shall live. 

2 — That small states have the same right to respect 
for their sovereignty and territorial integrity as great 
nations. 

3 — That the world has a right to be free from dis- 
turbance of its peace originating in aggression on the 
rights of peoples and nations. 

The application of these fundamental principles, as 
the president calls them, means not only the restoration 
of Belgium and Poland, but also means the end of the 
Austrian Empire and the erection of an independent 
Bohemian-Slovak State. No other logical conclusion can 
be drawn from Woodrow Wilson's speech. Certain it is 
that the Bohemians never again will voluntarily live under 
Austrian sovereignty. 

We submit that in pleading for the liberation of 
Bohemia we are therefore adhering to what has long been 

20 



considered as established American policy, and that we 
are carrying out the stirring appeal of Woodrow Wilson. 

In some quarters an opinion seems to prevail that 
the president in taking this position perhaps did not fully 
consider the interests of America. The distinction thus 
attempted to be drawn is unfortunate, and one that cer- 
tainly will be abandoned upon second thought. The real 
interests of humanity and of America ought to be iden- 
tical, and we believe that in fact they are. 

The forefathers of the founders of the American 
republic came to this country in order to escape religious 
and political oppression. Americanism is a spiritual atti- 
tude, and one not depending upon the accident of birth. 
Those are the real Americans who in spirit follow the 
example of the forefathers, and who in our days are the 
pioneers of liberty for nations, as well as individuals; 
and they may well claim the American pioneers of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth century as their spiritual 
ancestors. 

It is conceivable that at the future peace conference 
America may be a participant'. We sincerely hope and 
indeed expect that America will not become one of the 
belligerents, and trust that it will be asked to participate 
in the conference as the greatest of neutral powers. We 
also trust that at such conference the influence of Ameri- 
can statesmanship will be thrown into the scale in favor 
of the liberation of small nationalities, including the 
liberation of Bohemia. 

The Bohemian inhabitants in this country are here 
to stay; they are here to become a part of the great 
American nation, and no doubt they are destined to be 
dissolved in the crucible making for a new and great 
English speaking nation in the Western hemisphere. If 
today we are pleading for the cause of Bohemian inde- 
pendence, we are doing so because of the traditions and 
ties that still bind us to the country of our ancestors, 
and we are doing so, as I have already said, as spiritual 
descendants of those who came to this country, fleeing 
from old world injustices. 

21 



If America ca^tributes to permanent and durable 
peace by saying the word necessary to achieve the libera- 
tion of small nationalities it will have earned the undying 
gratitude of the Czechs living in Europe, as well as all 
numerically small nations, and it will have contributed a 
glorious chapter to the history of the world, as well as 
that of America. 

It is a glorious opportunity that confronts America; 
it is a historical moment of the first magnitude; it is an 
unusual duty that confronts all of us as individuals. Let 
us not merely speak of the deeds of great men, let us not 
be content vdth speaking of the sublime heroism of Hus, 
Jerome of Prague, the Hussites, the Bohemian volunteers 
in the present war, and of those who liave unflinchingly 
gone to Austrian gallows, or who have faced unflinchingly 
the Austrian firing squad; but let us within our own 
sphere emulate them as far as possible, and let us con- 
tribute to the success of the cause for which they died. 
Only thus can we be real Americans; only thus shall we 
be true both to American and Czech traditions. 



VII. 

IN conclusion may we be permitted to indulge in a 
dream? It may seem out of place, witnessing as we are 
the most murderous struggle of the ages, to speak of a 
future brotherhood of nations. It is entirely possible that 
many of our most cherished dreams of internationalism 
have been shattered for a long time to come. Yet, why 
should it not be possible to indulge in the dream that the 
Alliance of Russia, England, France, Italy, Belgium, and 
Serbia, forms the nucleus of the future world federation 
which all other nations may perhaps join when they have 
come to their senses, and when they have realized that 
all dreams of domination of the world by one nation must 
be given up; that no single nation can dominate for any 
length of time the whole modern world? 

22 



It was an English poet who sang of the time 

'Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle- 
flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 

I have merely indicated how after all there is a 
spiritual kinship between those who are engaged today in 
battle on the Allied side, including among these the Czech 
nation. Let us hope that at the end of the war these 
nations will emerge victoriously and that joining hands 
with them will be Bohemia as a free and independent 
state; and that co-operating with this nucleus of the 
future Federation of the World will be the great Ameri- 
can Republic. 




23 



Bohemian (Czech) National 
Alliance in America 



The Bohemian National Alliance in America is an or- 
ganization composed of the "Sokol" gymnastic societies, 
of the principal Czech fraternal organizations, of social 
clubs and labor bodies. It has branches in most of the 
larger cities of the United States, as well as many branches 
in Canada. It is entitled to speak for the 700,000 Bohe- 
mians in the United States. 

The Bohemian National Alliance is working actively 
for the freedom of Bohemia, an object which is bound up 
with the success of the Allies. It opposes the false neu- 
trality tactics employed by Germans living in the United 
States, particularly their efforts to stop the export of mu- 
nitions of war. 

With the Bohemian National Alliance in America are 
affiliated similar organizations of Czechs living in London, 
Paris and Switzerland. 




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